March 13, 2011 9:27 AM

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Chaturvedi committee report on Antrix-Devas deal submitted

The high-powered Chaturvedi committee, which was set up to review the controversial Antrix-Devas deal, has submitted its report to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. A PMO statement said last night that Dr Singh has asked Cabinet Secretary K M Chandrashekar to examine the report and make recommendations on the follow-up action within 15 days. The two-member committee, comprising BK Chaturvedi and Roddam Narsimha, was constituted by the Prime Minister to review the technical, commercial, procedural and financial aspects of the deal. The panel had also been asked to suggest correctives and fix responsibility for lapses if any and recommend improvements and changes in processes and procedures followed by Antrix, ISRO and Department of Space. The Cabinet Committee on Security, CCS, at a meeting on February 17, had recommended scrapping of the controversial deal under which ISRO's commercial arm Antrix had agreed tolease 90 per cent of scarce S-band space segment capacity on two satellites to private firm Devas for 12 years. As per the CCS recommendation, Devas, which has former ISRO employees on its top management, was served a termination notice on February 25.While scrapping the controversial deal, the CCS also decided not to allot S-band space segment for commercial use and retained it solely for strategic and societal applications.

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